Kevin
"Rashid" Johnson

& the
New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter

In 1990,
Kevin "Rashid" Johnson was a drug dealer, an ambitious member of
amerika's Black lumpen proletariat, or underclass. Like so many, as a young
adult he was arrested and received a lengthy prison sentence. He has been
incarcerated ever since - for the past eighteen years in conditions of solitary
confinement.

As Rashid
has written, "Because I accepted my lifestyle and all of its consequences,
I was always reluctant to involve my family or others on the outside of prison
in my conflicts with the pigs. I dealt with my own problems–directly."

In 1993,
Rashid was transferred to Greenville prison. As he has written:

What I
was to encounter at Greensville defied anything that I’d expected. The pigs had
a refined system and license for brutalizing prisoners. I was not to understand
the magnitude of the situation until a few days after being there. The pigs had
a tier of handpicked proxy prisoners, whom they used to violently suppress
those who got out of line. The ringleader – I’ll call him Pumpkin – was a
career con with a reputation for butchering other prisoners. He had a trustee
job (all trustees were similarly selected). Pumpkin was allowed by the pigs to
keep weapons on his person. Part of the mental terror game was that while he
was out cleaning (everyone knew he was a pig hit man and stayed armed), the
pigs would bring others out around him in handcuffs (segregation prisoners must
be handcuffed from behind when outside their cells, unless they have a trustee
job, or are locked inside an exercise yard or shower stall). The she-pigs
(guards and nurses) were the tools used to sic Pumpkin on others. He regarded
and jealously guarded these she-pigs like actual mates, whereas all they did
for him was bring him bubble gum, watch him masturbate in their presence and
flirt with him.

The setup
game usually went like this: one of their she-dogs would provoke an argument
with the target (refuse him something he was due, etc.). She’d then report to
Pumpkin that the target had “disrespected’ her, or any of many other claims.
Pumpkin would then come to the target’s cell and start a hostile verbal
exchange, send a challenge via third-party message, etc. Once the conflict was
established, the pigs would move the target into the tier with Pumpkin and his
cronies – the entire tier rode with him. The pigs would thoroughly search the
target’s property for weapons before moving him, to ensure that he had no means
of defense. Once assigned to a cell on Pumpkin’s tier, the target was fair
game. If he was stouthearted, he’d stand his ground. The next day or so the
pigs would put them on the exercise yard together, remove everyone’s handcuffs
except the target’s (they’d put five to seven prisoners in each pen), and allow
them to mob attack the still handcuffed target. Or if they wanted him
butchered, he’d be unhandcuffed and left to contend unarmed against a
knife-wielding Pumpkin.

Rashid
took the lead in organizing and waging war against the "Pumpkin" and
his goon squad, and the guards who were giving the orders to dole out abuse as
well. Not only did this force Pumpkin's crew to back down and sue for peace,
but it brought about some limited reforms at Greenville itself, though it also
led to Rashid's being transfered again, and to the beginning of what would be
18 years (and counting) in "segregation":

On
account of the systematic attacks on the pigs at the height of their abuses, the
DOC’s internal affairs office decided to get involved in investigating the
years of prisoner complaints of brutality in the unit. In their efforts to
neutralize our responses, the internal affairs unit ended up having a dozen
pigs criminally prosecuted for brutality and using other prisoners to enter
prisoners’ cells and attack them – once allowing a prisoner to use riot gear.
Two pigs were ultimately convicted. Pumpkin was also prosecuted and convicted
for an incident where the pigs opened another prisoner’s cell, allowing him to
ambush him. The prisoner was stabbed multiple times. Pumpkin’s trustee job was
immediately terminated under the backlash of this incident. [...] Several weeks
later I was transferred back to Mecklenburg prison, returning to the scene of
past abuses [...]

During my
stay at Mecklenburg, one of the ranking pigs, who were instrumental in
torturing me with the freezing strip cell treatment, was ambushed. On this
occasion I’d been strapped to the bunk by the pigs. In order for a prisoner to
receive meals and toilet breaks while strapped down, the pigs must come to his
cell, remove the chains and straps and handcuff him. They will leave the cell,
close the door, and remove the cuffs through a hatch in the door. However,
during this 1994 episode, when the pigs came in to release me for a toilet
break, the claim is that I’d gotten out of the restraints and was lying on the
bunk under a blanket as though still strapped down. When the ranking pig and
two others moved to lift the blanket, I allegedly rose up, with weapon in hand,
and attacked. Two of them (the ranking pig included) received multiple stab
wounds, and the third pig received a cracked jaw. This incident, in its obvious
preplanning and execution, left the pigs in such a quandary that no retribution
followed. Indeed, I was several days later transferred to Buckingham and
quickly released into the general population.

By this
time it was realized that I was not insane at all, but calculating and
determined. While prison administrators and those who proposed to “study” me
from a distance put forward the fiction that I was inclined to “unprovoked”
violence against the pigs, the pigs who dealt with me on a day-to-day basis
knew, very clearly, that any violence from me was always in response to their
own acts of violence or abuse of me or my peers. As long as the pigs remembered
this, things went well, but there was always some lone pig with a cowboy
complex who had to test his hand, and I’d answer it. The majority of the pigs
at Buckingham didn’t want me in the population walking about. They therefore
attempted several times through trumped-up reports to have me returned to
segregation. On the last occasion that this was done, I was charged with being
in an “unauthorized area” of the prison. The pigs waited until I’d locked into
the cell at count time to come and lock me up in segregation. I refused to go
peacefully. One pig threatened that if I didn’t, I’d receive a severe
“ass-whipping.” In response I agreed to walk peacefully to segregation. When
the pigs opened the cell door to escort me out, the threatening pig received a
nose broken in two places. I’ve been in segregation ever since.

While in
segregation, Rashid taught himself law, and began litigating against the
prisons. For a period of six years he launched various lawsuits, and at first
scored several victories, until he acquired the reputation of being
troublemaker with various judges who then sought to shut him out of the courts:

With the
added psychological deterrent of litigation, my clashes with the pigs declined
somewhat in frequency. They focused primarily on isolating me from others.
Their efforts to perpetuate a discontinuity in our unity has been the pigs’
only effective weapon against me. And they’ve admitted in a thousand ways that
their greatest fear is ending up with many other prisoners on their hands who
think and act as I do. Their isolating me was long a tactic that I could not
devise an effective countermeasure against, that is, until after 2001, when I
was first exposed to revolutionary theory and have since come to understand the
role of ideology. Without a unifying ideology, there can be no unity of
struggle. Ideology was something I’d never had, and thus something I could not
share. The prisoners who’d united in struggle with me had done so because of
me. Not because of a shared principle. Therefore, when I was no longer around,
they lost the initiative to struggle on, and the pigs were free to resort to
their old oppressive acts.

With the
beginnings of my studies in revolutionary history and theory in 2001,
litigation and my isolated clashes with the pigs paled in importance. My first
exposure to revolutionary ideas came with my meeting Hanif Shabazz-Bey in 2001.
Hanif is a political prisoner who is apparently well known within prison
movement circles. Upon meeting we developed an instant affinity. He began
sending me a variety of publications through which I was first exposed to the
works of George Jackson. [...]

I became
engrossed in acquiring and studying all that George had studied and more, which
included the classics and not-so-classics: Vladimir Lenin, Mao Tse-tung, Karl
Marx, Frantz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah, Che Guevara, Rosa Luxemburg, Harry Magdoff,
Paul Sweezy, Albert Szymanski, bell hooks, Cornel West, Howard Zinn, Noam
Chomsky, Edward Said, Vo Nguyen Giap, etc. I investigated the various
revolutionary schools of thought – Communism, Anarchy, New Afrikan Nationalism,
Feminism, and other left-leaning theories. I studied military thinkers and
military history, sociology and history, political science, economic theories
(left and right), revolutionary history, etc. and I am still studying, refining
my views, and testing them in practice.

The more
I studied, reflected, practiced, and drew insight from my own practical
experiences, the more it all fell together, so clear and obvious. As my
conceptualizations developed, I wrote a few essays, usually at others’
requests, (my ideas were still forming, some I could not clearly articulate, so
I adopted terms, thoughts, and ideas. But it was all quickly coming together.)
I could see where the failures and successes had occurred in various
anti-colonial, class, anti-racist, feminist, and anti-imperialist struggles.
And I could see where the failure to apply the scientific Marxist approach to
the study and practice of resisting oppressive conditions (Historical and
Dialectical Materialism) resulted in failed idealist attempts to make the
desired social changes. [...]

I still
endure repression at the hands of the pigs, as do my peers. I still take a
principled stand against this repression. But above all else, I am working on
bringing my peers into a principled ideological and political consciousness
that will give them discipline and a cause to struggle for, while simultaneously
imparting to them the correct methods of mass based struggle. The pigs’
response continues to be to isolate me. Their violence has proven futile. Even
in this most totalitarian of environments, innovation and relentless commitment
to an ideal has proven, to my satisfaction, that the oppressive institutions
are not invulnerable. Fear is our greatest hindrance. Fear and half measures.
They can isolate me, but they cannot isolate an ideal.

In the
mid-2000s, Rashid took up an illicit correspendence with another revolutionary
held at the same supermax prison as him, but in general population. Messages
were smuggled back and forth between segregation and general pop for several
months. This correspondence, in which Rashid and "Outlaw" discuss
revolutionary theory and practice, the challenges of dealing with other less
committed prisoners, reactionaries, and snitches, and the question of how to
best organize behind bars, has been collected together and is available now in
the book Defying the Tomb, published by Kersplebedeb in 2010.

As well
as Rashid and Outlaw's letters, Defying the Tomb contains several essays by
Rashid, a foreword by Russell "Maroon" Shoats, a foreword and
afterword by Tom Big Warrior, and an afterword by Sundiata Acoli. (The quotes
above are from Rashid's autobiographical sketch, also included in the book.)

In 2011
Pelican Bay State Prison in California ruled that Defying the Tomb was
"gang material" and as such would be considered contraband within the
prison. Kersplebedeb Publishing is appealing this decision; to read
Kersplebedeb's position click here.

Defying
the Tomb has been reviewed by:

Reviews

Defying
the Tomb

Reviewed
by former political prisoner Ed Mead

Under
Lock & Key: Review: Defying the Tomb

Reviewed
by MIM(Prisons)

For more
writings by Rashid, see below, or visit Rashid's website at www.rashidmod.com

A few
months after Outlaw and Rashid exchanged the last letters included in this
book, Comrade Shaka Sankofa Zulu and Rashid came together to found the New
Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC). The NABPP-PC has since
developed branches in various prisons across the u$ empire and has its own
newsletter, Right On!

Many of
the thoughts and ideas that went into the formation of the NABPP-PC and its
mass organization, the New Afrikan Service Organization, can be seen in their
developmental stages in these letter exchanges with Outlaw.

Right On!
is published by Rising Sun Press, are several other newsletters promoting
Marxism-Leninism, with a focus on national liberation and the prison struggle.
A collection of these newsletters from the period of 2005 to 2008 have been
made available as an anthology. These were scanned in by some comrades, and are
being made available for free download here with permission from the publisher.
Just click on the image to the right, or else right here.

Other
documents from the United Panther movement have been scanned and uploaded on
the website of Revolutionary Initiative, a canadian Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
group:

Incomplete
List of Writings

by Kevin
"Rashid" Johnson

Rashid is
a prolific writer, on subjects ranging from the class structure of the Black
nation in the united states to the theory of Historial and Dialectical Materialism.
Of particular importance are his ongoing exposes of abuse and torture within
the dungeons of the prison-industrial complex, most specifically Red Onion
State Prison in Virginia, where he is currently help captive.

Here are
a few of his essays (many of which are on his website at rashidmod.com):